final supervision?

I had what was probably my final supervision meeting yesterday. Just over 90 minutes discussing the final changes to my thesis. No pomp and ceremony, just a normal discussion about not calling my analysis approach an 'analytical framework', what to do with the evolving research questions, critiquing the notion of research questions in ethnographic and interpretive research, not using the word interpretative as apparently it doesn't exist (see previous term), my use of some dodgy in-text referencing formats, rewriting the abstract, removing some illustrative diagrams as they cause confusion and a whole series of signposting and editorial 'concerns'.

So this is it! I need to submit three chapters for a re-read within about 10 days time, have my data chapters re-read by a colleague for clarity and signposting, attend to all the editorial and formatting issues with a proper proofreading and then 'Bob's your uncle' I'm submitting, as planned in early August. It hasn't sunk in yet, evidenced by my inability to sleep last night. Maybe this thesis will go gently into the night after all. I guess its only fitting after so many, many months of upheaval.

the insignificant in the face of the significant

I can't escape the strange way that the world and life works. Nelson Mandela appears to be slowing going into the night - close to no longer suffering; bearing the burden of physical frailty and the responsibility for meaning and being so much to our new but equally frail democracy. This is the significant news. And while I thought I was slowly building up my resistance through all his health scares and hospitalisations, the latest news on his condition has forced me to admit and remind myself that you can't build up your resistance to death.

The insignificance of the feedback I've started to receive on my thesis has been accentuated amidst the creeping recognition that this significant person will not be with for us much longer.

My worries and anxieties about the nature of the feedback I would receive was somewhat unfounded. I have been asked to consider and focus on refinements, detail and clarity. The overall argument and the bulk of what I have done is generally okay - but I need to zoom in and resolve inconsistencies in the detail of the narrative and arguments. Some areas will require rewriting, rethinking and reformulating to clear confusion and make for a pleasant reading experience. From where I'm standing at the moment I think I am on track to submit, as planned, within six weeks. Maybe I'm slightly optimistic but it might not be a rushed six weeks - but should allow me the time to ponder and reassess in a fairly slow and measured manner - the way I like to think and write. It hasn't all sunk in just yet - that finally, I too am taking my thesis slowing into the night.

time to step back

Initially, when I first knew there would be a three week 'break' between the submission of my full draft and  feedback from my supervisors I was a bit frustrated. Three weeks of free time or rather three weeks of wasted time, I thought. But as I approach the final days of this three week period my views have shifted. I'm realising the value and opportunity this free period has provided, especially for two particular aspects relating to the thesis itself and the PhD process.

Firstly, stepping back has given me perspective on the arguments and claims made in the thesis and how I've expressed it. Reading over some of the key chapters in my thesis over these past three weeks I am starting to see where I could have taken the argument and possibly why I didn't. Of course I also see the gaps, I'm always seeing the gaps. I can also see the value of expressing the claims and arguments in a sharper more coherent fashion. I've been tweaking my prose here and there, but this has in some cases resulted in additional words which my thesis can't accommodate at the moment. A really significant realisation I've made is that how the arguments are expressed in the thesis is contextually-tied to the thesis itself. As I've tried to 'take out' these arguments for use elsewhere, like for the SRHE conference in December, I can see how they need different kinds of 'mediation'. Here the value, significance and importance of presenting one's work to the field and audiences outside the field have struck me. Especially when taking my work outside my field I feel I needed to develop a more robust articulation of my core arguments. But for me this is really valuable in helping to reclaim the practical value of the thesis. It's a way of bringing the four years of intellectual work down to earth.

Secondly, because of this 'time away' from the thesis and the intensity of the PhD process itself, I'm starting to see the PhD process differently, especially the PhD relationships. I think this can only be because of the distance that has been created and maybe, on a minor note, a reflection on the stage I'm at in the process itself. Towards the end you see things very differently to the views you had as you were setting out or when you were smack-bang in the middle of it all. For me, in order to engage in any critical reflection of the process, the people, the relationships, I need some dislocation from the immediacy of the experience - which this three weeks provided. I've been given the permission to see my own experience differently and I think I have gained insights into the actions and behaviours of the 'others' in this very personal and in many ways intellectually intimate relationship. I haven't forgotten those dark days and the conflict and confusion I felt, but now I can step outside of those experiences to try to understand them differently. Understand the people involved in those experiences differently. People always talk about how the PhD changes you forever, and I think before I decided to embark on the process I was most worried about the nature of the changes that would affect me. I see now how much I've changed (maybe I'll have to devote another blog post to reflecting on these changes) in ways I could never have predicted.

Now, I wait for the feedback and wonder where it will take me. So yeah, as obvious as it sounds, this time next week will be a very different time and place. In this moment I am happy to just take on that realisation, its the best I can do?

what to do when waiting

I'm waiting on feedback on my first full draft submission. So what to do during this time of waiting? I must admit that all my fantasizing about sitting in bed watching TV, catching up on fiction reading and other such frivolous past-times didn't really materialized as I imagined. After day three I started to mildly obsess about the fact that I wasn't doing any work on my thesis - work being all the little mistakes and omissions I had picked up and wanted to look at during this period of waiting. But it was harder to get back into the swing of things. Now, well into the second week of waiting and I feel rather undisciplined because I'm not working full days and keep making mental notes of all the reading and bibliography cleaning up I should be doing.

My back hurts like hell each time I sit down at my desk for more than an hour. But, it's lovely to step back from my thesis and just allow thoughts about it to come and go freely through my mind. I fluctuate between thinking that I did an ok job with the thesis to absolutely hating what I wrote. Stepping back allows for perspective and I'm grateful I have some time to allow perspective to work it's magic.

the draft has landed

Just uploaded the first full draft of the thesis to the shared dropbox folder. I feel flat, there are too many 'problems' with it, things I just couldn't sort out. Oh well, I say to myself, shrugging my shoulders. So be it!

Now for a few days 'off'. Sleeping late, watching way too much TV, catching up on chores put aside until the draft was in, drinking more red wine than I should. Then, back to the thesis and the list of 'troubles' that need sorting out.

fickle

Can one be so fickle? One moment I'm in a complete panic about the amount of time I have to get my thesis together and worrying deeply about the quality of the work I'm producing. Then, after editing a chapter or getting some positive comments, everything feels fine again. I calm down, stop stressing and feel like I'm worthy of this freaking PhD. Up and down, up and down go my emotions. One moment confident, the next complete unsure.

I went to Zumba tonight - just fantastic! The perfect antidote to all my troubles. I can't think about my thesis or my silly emotions because I'm too worried about following the steps and getting my feet to co-ordinate with my arms.

Avoidance

I'm in a state of deep avoidance. I won't touch my literature review - I won't go near it because I fear I can't fix it, sort it out in the way that it needs to be sorted out. So I've been avoiding it, skirting around its edges and now I'm running out of time. I'm getting my knickers in a knot over things, issues not even raised by my last supervision feedback. Dealt with, with a rational mind it would probably take less than a day to deal with. I submit my first full draft at the end of the week. Technically I'm meant to submit it on Friday - cause it's the end of the month. But practically, nobody will even glance an eye at it over the weekend - so I have until Sunday evening to upload it. I'm rushing towards this deadline, like the tortoise, in that fabled race. Yes, I'll get there but in my own time. If only I believed that - deep down I wish I was the hare, racing ahead with determination and drive.

And then to crown it all, I've had a crappy week - filled with emotional, practical and physical troubles. I was down with a cold on Thursday and Friday (but of course doing a PhD means you can't take off because of a pissy, little cold). Now my dodgy wrist is definitely dodgy again. I thought I sorted it out three weeks ago, but the injury has come back with a vengeance. I'm forced to wear the wrist-brace again which just slows me down - but if I take it off, I'm back to square one - where I am at the moment. And of course I'm not sleeping either. And winter has arrived in Cape Town - my fingers are cold as I type these words. Just what you need when you are trying to face-down your 'literacy practice' fear.

But onward I go. Of course I'll submit, of course it will be okay. I fantasize about how good my PhD might have been if I was close to the place I am now, last year. I like having the time to mull over things. To allow life to happen and to be able to deal with life, separately from the PhD. I'm going to try my luck in the place of calm for the rest of the day and maybe the evening too. Break the hold this 'avoidance thing' has over me.

and life gets in the way...again!

This was a crucial weekend for me. On Friday I was filled with an urgency to tie up a series of loose ends and get ahead of my schedule. I just needed to get ahead. I was so determined too, and by Saturday evening even though things hadn't gone strictly to plan, I was still in it with a winning chance. But freaking life! I think one is meant to do a PhD on an island somewhere far, far away from the complications and messiness of life. Where you can focus on only the PhD and not be distracted by reality. Of course I don't believe what I've just said - I just wish it could have applied this weekend, or for the next two weeks. I can't switch off, I can't pull all the personal stuff aside. It's the nature of my 'being' and so I get pulled in all directions, always at the expense of my PhD.

Here we go!

Dear Lynn

Thank you for giving notice of your intended submission. Arrangements are being made for the appointment of an examination panel.

You should now go to our website at http://www.open.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/forms-and-guidance-notes.php

to download a Candidate declaration form, which is for you to complete together with your supervisors.  When we receive this form and your thesis, we can send them to your examiners.

We have your thesis title as follows: Literacy Practices and the Curriculum Context: Exploring the Production of Assignments in a South African Vocational Higher Education Institution.  You can indicate on the Candidate declaration form if this changes.

washing it all down with a bit of 'pink drink'

I've had a pretty crap week. So it seemed fitting to wash away all the crap, this afternoon, with some 'pink drink'. The 'pink drink' was the perfect accompaniment to the robust, stimulating and challenging critical conversation I had with LT, an 'ex' of mine. The edge has been taken off my rather up-then-down and totally frustrating week. I'm tired, so tired. I feel I lack the inspiration, energy and drive that most people say they experience at this stage of the game. I just feel spent already. As I'm thinking through the conclusion arguments I want to make, I know it's all in my head - but I'm spent and frustrated that I can't express my thoughts in the ways I know it needs to be expressed. 

My friend and 'ex'-colleague passed her viva with minor corrections this week. A fantastic result and one I knew she would achieve. Of course this is a result I would be ecstatic to receive myself, but having said that I wouldn't feel any shame if I got major corrections. In fact I've boldly stated that a 'pass with major corrections' would be a perfectly reasonable outcome. I'd be annoyed, but not disappointed. Maybe I'm just being realistic, or maybe it's the tired me talking. I know my research is solid, I know I'm making a meaningful contribution - but I also know that the value of what I have done in this research, can and will live beyond the thesis. That's the exciting part for me. In a way I see the process of putting the thesis together as a necessary evil to get me to that point. Again my anti-PhD self is highlighting the very insignificance of this significant process (to quote LT). So hey ho! Onward I go to pin the conclusion down and move closer still to finishing the thesis.

Writing the conclusion

I’m sitting in the library on a Saturday morning. The sun is shining brightly, and Cape Town is decked in blue skies. I’m trying to write my conclusion chapter. I’m experimenting with a form of free writing, with the aim of producing a spew draft. I’m writing around the themes or ideas I generated during a brainstorming and mind mapping exercise. I’m trying not to impose too many critical observations as I write – the kinds of critical observations that will usually make me stop writing because I judge the idea to be ill-conceived, poorly articulated, disconnected from another idea, lacking substantiation or irrelevant to my developing argument. I want to hold off on all this kind of judgement and questioning until I have written all I need to write about a specific topic or heading in the chapter. There will be enough time and opportunity to critique, rip apart and discard when I take the chapter to the next level in the writing process. I few months ago I found some useful advice about approaching a writing task as having many different stages that demand different things from the writer. An essential element of this approach is not to start the ‘editing’ process prematurely. I've tried over the past couple of days to take this advice on board and use this first level of writing as an experiment of ideas. And it seems to be working for me, I don’t have a blank sheet of paper or screen staring at me admonishingly.

Before I started to work on the conclusion chapter I was silently dreading it. I passively avoided moving myself in the direction of working on the task – playing stupid little games with myself, that all centred around avoidance and denial. When I finally sat down to work on it, a day later than planned, I was pleasantly surprised. It didn't seem so bad after all. I could write stuff. I chose not to judge what I was writing. In addition to the writing approach I’m adopting, I think there is a hint of confidence and clarity about my thesis project finally coming through. This really is my story and I can provided the justification for why I’m sticking with it.